Mark Carney dance gives boost to Canadian band Down With Webster

Tyler Armes, bassist and keyboardist with Down With Webster, speaks about Mark Carney's viral dance to his band's music.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s federal election victory dance has put the spotlight on Canadian rap-rock band Down With Webster.

The footage of the prime minister dancing in the early hours of Tuesday received thousands of views on social media and streams of Down With Webster’s music skyrocketed.

Since the clip of Carney’s election victory dance went viral, Down With Webster has seen a surge of interest in its music on the major streaming platform Spotify.

Spotify says that streams of the Juno Award-nominated band’s track “Time To Win” rose by 96 per cent in Canada in the last seven days, the streaming platform’s spokesperson told CTVNews.ca Wednesday.

“Time To Win” was used as a kind of anthem for the prime minister’s rallies during the campaign.

In the viral clip, Carney is seen dancing and rapping to the band’s “Whoa Is Me” track. He wore a red custom official hoodie with the words “PM” and the Canadian flag at the front, and “M. Carney” and the No. 24 on the back, referring to being Canada’s 24th prime minister.

Carney recently said before the election that he was a “huge” Down With Webster fan during an interview with popular Vancouver-based interviewer John Ruskin, known as Nardwuar the Human Serviette.

After Carney’s victory dance, Down With Webster posted a message of unity on its Instagram account in the wake of a divisive election campaign.

“We love you no matter what party you choose, as long as you choose to party!” the band wrote.

Carney invites Down With Webster to perform on election night

Tyler Armes, bassist and keyboardist with Down With Webster, said that a week before the April 28 vote, Carney had asked the band to perform at the Liberal election night headquarters.

“We’re really honoured and humbled to be asked to go perform,” Armes said in a video interview Wednesday with CTVNews.ca from Venice Beach, Calif., noting it was something from their “wildest dreams.”

Down With Webster gifted Carney a custom medium-sized red hoodie and Carney asked the band to play up to seven songs, Armes said.

“He was just awesome and put it on for us,” Armes said of the hoodie. “We didn’t expect him to immediately throw the hoodie on after he did his speech.”

Armes said Down With Webster was pleasantly surprised about the attention and positive reaction to Carney dancing to his band’s music.

“What’s really been crazy to see for us is so many different press outlets have picked up the picture of him wearing this hoodie on it and him dancing to the band playing,” he said. “That’s not something I think any of us anticipated that would have happened.”

The band ended up cutting the set list to three of Carney’s favourite Down With Webster songs because of timing issues: “Time to Win,” “Your Man” and “Whoa Is Me.”

“He was there front row the whole time with his family and his campaign and his friends,” Armes said. “It was like being at like a full rock concert. ... it was so cool.”

For the full interview, watch the video above.